Sanders to Cuomo: CUNY Needs Your Help

Citing CUNY’s role in educating working New Yorkers, Senator Bernie Sanders called on Governor Cuomo in an open letter (pdf) to “invest in a fair contract for the University’s faculty and staff”.

Funding for the University remains below 2008 levels, even as the rest of the state recovers from recession. While Gov. Cuomo has demonstrated an openess to massive (and intelligent) workforce development investments elsewhere in the state, CUNY funding remains 35% below its 1990 budget.

“The promise that CUNY has always represented is being broken,” Sanders writes. As contract funding falls below competitive levels, it is more difficult for CUNY to deliver quality college education to the state’s poorest residents. This effective locks many New Yorkers out of economic competition based on arbitrary factors like historical family income, race, and geography.